Eat, Pray, Love

Last night when I had  dinner with the boys from Canaan cottage I was rather amused at what happens when their auntie gets up from the table.  Certainly the phrase when the cat is away, the mice come out to play was so true.  We had rice, scrambled eggs, and diced tomatoes (and I'm happy to report that I ate the entire bowl and I don't even like tomatoes - but I attribute that to the fact that it didn't contain beans so I was more apt to finish it all). Normally the kids are pretty reserved while eating meals - little conversation occurs.  But boy, once their auntie left the table, those boys started wheeling and dealing about who wanted their tomatoes and who didn't want their eggs, and who wanted more rice.

One little boy, Kilonzi, who is just in kindergarten and is missing his two front teeth, was just heaping his rice onto his neighbors' plates.  If the auntie had been paying attention, she would have noticed that half of his bowl was gone by the time she sat back down.  He just kept shoveling food onto other people's plates and they were happy to take it off his hands.  She left the table twice and both times, the boys would shove their plates across the table so that others could take what they wanted.  And then she would sit back down and they became good little mice again, minding their manners, and acting like nothing had happened.  I had to work at containing my smirk.

I was finally able to borrow Kate's (another volunteer here) computer so I could get a few more pictures up.  I'm glad she loves taking pictures because I just plain forget to take my camera to places or I just get lazy.  She's making up for my lacking and I'm so grateful. 

In this picture, several of us had to paint the main gate.  Somebody had crashed into it awhile back and it hadn't been repainted since the repairs.  Being that I love to paint, I was rather looking forward to the assignment.  But this is when the village director asked that I go to the market with her and get out of the village - also when I managed to motion sickness.  The painting project was short-lived for me. 

This is me with the boys from Beersheba cottage.  We had just finished dinner and managed to snap a few pictures before being shoo-ed out the door by one of their mamas.

Here I am with Daisy, a Rothschild giraffe at the Giraffe Center.  Kate managed to get a big, slimy kiss from Daisy but I said no thanks.  I've gotten enough kisses from horses in my lifetime.  I don't need any from giraffes.   

And then me having a very happy moment at Java House.  I just got my cheeseburger, fries, and vanilla milkshake.  This was after we had gone to the see the elephants and giraffes and were winding up the day before we headed back.  I had been yearning for some normalcy when it came to food and a cheeseburger, fries, and milkshake had never looked so glorious.  You can bet I ate every last greasy bite and thanked Jesus for each.

This weekend Kate and I are off to the  Masai Mara for a safari, which I am uber excited about.  We'll be gone for the weekend, heading out early Friday morning and coming back later Sunday night.  The really great thing about the timing of this trip is that it is during the great wildebeest migration.  It's pretty spectacular from what I've been told so here's hoping we encounter some stellar views of not just wildebeests, but hopefully some of the Big Five.  Mom and Dad, this is the point at which I said I would make no promises about possibly bringing home some extra luggage, which may very well come in the shape of a small furry lion cub.